The Walt Disney Studios has announced a U.S. release date of March 14, 2014, for Maleficent, starring Angelina Jolie in the title role as Disney’s ultimate villain. The live-action film explores the origins of the evil fairy Maleficent and what led her to curse Princess Aurora in Disney’s animated classic Sleeping Beauty. Leading a team of visionary filmmakers known for creating and transporting audiences to new and exciting worlds, Academy Award®-winning production designer Robert Stromberg (Avatar, Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and Oz The Great and Powerful) will direct with a script by Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Alice in Wonderland). Maleficent is produced by Joe Roth (Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and Oz The Great and Powerful).

It's too bad this is so far off; I'm actually getting excited to see this, though I've never been a huge SB or Maleficent fan. It's too bad they won't go crazy with the special effects a la Alice in Wonderland.

It's too bad this is so far off; I'm actually getting excited to see this, though I've never been a huge SB or Maleficent fan. It's too bad they won't go crazy with the special effects a la Alice in Wonderland.

You mean because reportedly they aren't going to use as big a budget? I can kind of understand why since it will be set in a more "real" environment with real sets probably instead of everything constructed in CGI like in Alice. I would think the special effects of magic and fairies and dragons would still be crazy cool.

Or go off at more of a different angle, and have Sleeping Beauty the Disney Classic as a distant related cousin ?

I would imagine that they'll have to take a few liberties with the story of the film in order to make this new interpretation work. If you look at "Wicked", a similar "story-behind-a-villain" adaptation, you'll notice that the Elphaba presented in the musical is nothing like the evil, cackling, one-dimensional villain in the film, even in the scenes in which the musical and movie cross-over.

The villain played by Margaret Hamilton and the character portrayed on stage all over the world are just too different, and even if we are to believe that she had a motivation for the bad things she did, the villain we see in the film just couldn't line up with the character that the musical wants us to believe she is.

It's an issue I think always occurs with these "villain's-backstory" re-imaginings. I read a Disney-published novel by an author who I think is called Sophie Valentino (although I may be mistaken, I can't remember), the novel was named "Fairest of All: A tale of a Wicked Queen" and told the story of the Queen from Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves". The novel, while alluding to and featuring many of the events from the film, just didn't line up with the material it took inspiration from.

I'm not saying it's entirely a bad thing, but it's sometimes necessary to veer away somewhat from the source material when trying to tell the same story from a different point of view.

Sometimes you can say that there's a "real story" that the movie did a different version of, or you can say that a movie or musical is a different interpretation/version of the same story and characters, so costumes look different and dialogue was changed along with the character portrayal.

Anyway, since this is called Maleficent, it is definately specifically Disney's Sleeping Beauty world, story, and characters, if that was your question atlanticaunderthesea. It just may tell the story differently, Maleficent's costume may look a little different, etc.

It's too bad this is so far off; I'm actually getting excited to see this, though I've never been a huge SB or Maleficent fan. It's too bad they won't go crazy with the special effects a la Alice in Wonderland.

You mean because reportedly they aren't going to use as big a budget? I can kind of understand why since it will be set in a more "real" environment with real sets probably instead of everything constructed in CGI like in Alice. I would think the special effects of magic and fairies and dragons would still be crazy cool.

I could imagine a lot of films may have their budgets reduced somewhat after the whole John Carter debacle, which seemed to go completely over-budget regardless of its success (or lack thereof). In any case, Sleeping Beauty does contain far more human characters than, say, Alice in Wonderland.

I just hope that the film doesn't lose the wonderful isolated, eerie atmosphere that "Sleeping Beauty" had. Obviously it may be necessary to change this in order to tell a new story, but it's one of the things I love about the source material.

I loved how there were so few characters, and all of the other people of the kingdom were just still images, like pictures on a tapestry, without faces sometimes even. I think Lazario put it best in a thread years ago, where he/she described the world of Sleeping Beauty as a dangerous and dark place, where the forests and mountains were deserted and danger lurked everywhere outside, and even at times inside, the castle walls, or words to that effect. It was a very insightful post and one which I'd love to read again if I could find it.

Snow White achieved a very similar effect, although perhaps not intentionally. Look at the number of characters: You have the Queen, Snow White, the Prince, the huntsman and the dwarves. There seem to be no other existing people in this Kingdom (although surely there are). The fact that we never see anyone or any other signs of human life except for the central characters just makes the world of the film seem so deserted and eerie.

It would be great to see this effect carried over to "Maleficent", although the director may wish to take a different route.

candydog, Lazario is a guy by the way, and I was going to say all Disney fairy tales have little amounts of people due to Disney having to be economical and it seems only Cinderella is more populated because of the ball, and the people at the palace gate reading the proclamation, but Sleeping Beauty (which was less economical) tried to put more people in and yet it still ended up eerie! Both Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are darker films, too, and concern death. I'd imagine this Maleficent film will expand upon the people and world...but perhaps the people will stay far in the background, being solemn, and the forest and forbidden mountain will no doubt still be uninhabited and feel ghostly.

I just hope that the film doesn't lose the wonderful isolated, eerie atmosphere that "Sleeping Beauty" had. Obviously it may be necessary to change this in order to tell a new story, but it's one of the things I love about the source material.

Agreed. Sleeping Beauty has so few Disney-esque characters - the soft, almost cartoony, round-faced characters that were the norm for the 1950's. In the early scenes, all the background characters appear to be faceless. The film has an unsettling emptiness to it; and because of the overall darker colours of the film, one can't help but feel that there are villains hiding in the shadows everywhere. It's as though Stefan's kingdom became deserted after Aurora was cursed. I also agree that Snow White is similar in this respect; it's one of the things that makes it so spooky and unnerving.

Maleficent, being a modern movie, will probably have guards fighting trolls et cetera with explosions and tedious action scenes instead of the original film's style and atmosphere.

I don't like the fact that Linda Woolverton is writing the script. She didn't 'get' the source material for Alice in Wonderland, and spoiled it with unnecessary details and turned into a bit of a swords-and-sorcery film. I'm worried that she'll add too much plot and too many twists to Maleficent in place of character development.

For a long time, the only thing we’ve really, truly known about Disney’s revisionist angle on Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent, is that it’ll take the titular fairy’s side and that Angelina Jolie will star. The film locked in a director with Robert Stromberg and there were rumours of Elle Fanning as Princess Aurora recently, but now there is actual confirmation of another actor, as Sharlto Copley is in negotiations to sign on.

Copley, who has been lining up all sorts of roles this week, will be King Stefan, the father of Aurora, and one of the people affected when Maleficent curses her. Given the casting of the District 9 star, you’ve got to figure this means Stefan will be given an expanded role in the story, because we can’t believe anyone casts Copley to just show up and wear a crown for a few days.

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